How To Take Better Control Of Your Own Mind
Mental health is a concern for everyone, not just for those who might have been specifically diagnosed with a mental health problem or who are receiving some kind of treatment. The fact is, we can all get anxious, depressed and so on, and we all need to make sure that we are thinking of our mental health in the same kind of way that we think of our bodily health: as a necessary part of taking care of ourselves which we need to look after. A big part of taking care of your own mental health is learning how to be in better control of your own mind, something which is of course more challenging for some people compared to others. In this article, we will take a look at some of the things you can do to take better control of your own mind – and so keep yourself healthier when it comes to the mental side of life.
Take Up Meditation
First of all, you need to develop some kind of ability for spotting the thoughts that you have and knowing how to deal with them. Something that will help you greatly with the first part of that problem is meditation, which is one of the oldest mental health tools we know of anywhere in the world, even if it was not always marketed in that kind of way. With a regular meditation practice, you will develop the quality of mind known as mindfulness, which is a bit like having a powerful torch that you can shine on any thought that might arise in your mind. If you have ever had difficulty with unwanted or overly worried thoughts, you can probably appreciate just how useful a torch like this would be. So, take up regular meditation – with a meditation teacher if possible – and see what it does for you. You might be surprised at the power behind this simple act.
Conquer Your Addictions
We all have habits of one kind or another, whether or not you might consider them fully-fledged addictions. If you are keen to take better control of your mind, then you will find that helping to get rid of your bad habits is likely to help you here. In fact, this is something of a cycle, and it pays to be on the right side of the cycle, for it to be a virtuous one rather than a vicious one. If you conquer your addictions, you will have greater mental strength – and at the same time, mental strength is required to conquer your addictions. So as you can see, at some point you need to break the cycle, but that might be easier to do than you might assume.
No matter what the addiction is, there will be a solution for getting rid of it from your life. Whether that is using e liquid for a while to kick a nicotine habit, or whether it’s going cold turkey on something, you can be sure that there is always a way. And once you have kicked one bad habit, you will find yourself becoming stronger in mind immediately, so it really is worth doing.
Be Careful With Screens
Something that needs to be mentioned specifically amongst all this is the use of screens in our daily life. This is such a big problem for us all at the moment, partly because many people don’t realize what a problem it is. But spend a few days without screens, and you will start to get a sense of what damage they are really causing us with regard to our minds. Put simply, you will find it a lot easier to control your own mind if you are not constantly being bombarded with information from many different kinds of sources. Social media might be useful in some respects, but it is also a kind of mental virus which inhibits your full and active thinking. If you don’t believe it, try going a fortnight without any social media at all. You will find that you feel lighter, happier, more flexible of mind, and that you have regained some imaginative and intellectual powers along the way too. It really is amazing what a difference it makes.
You don’t have to do away with it altogether, but taking breaks from social media can be a helpful way to regain control over your own mind, and that is a resolution that any of us can get behind.
